World Peace
by Shadsie
Summary: Success always comes at a cost. As we strive to reach our goals, we must ask ourselves if we are willing to pay the price. A tale of Knives.


Disclaimer: Yadda, yadda, yadda, I don't own Trigun...lalalala, I a making no money from this...dodedo...please don't sue me...Trigun belongs to Mr. Nightow and Victor Entertainment, Pioneer Entertainment, ect, ect, blah, blah, blah, yackety-smackety...  
  
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"Plant a demon seed, you raise a flower of fire. See them burning crosses, see the flames, higher and higher."___U2, "Bullet the Blue Sky"   
  
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WORLD PEACE  
  
  
  
  
  
He wandered the silent path; the scattered remains of what had once been buildings the only things to rise out of the desolation. The light of the moons turned the sands, dingy by day, into sparkling gemstone dust. The air was a stifling hot mass that clung to the man's body and made him sweat beneath his suit. Two moons waxing full and a third in a sickle shape cast a menacing red glow. The long shadows the light created painted a disturbing panorama of black on blood.   
  
The wandering man snorted from the tickle in his nostrils created by the particle-debris hanging in the air. The only sound to be heard was the baying of coyotes, no doubt wandering this city to pick over what they could find of carrion.   
  
Success he had finally won. This was the last of the human settlements. He had destroyed it in a flash of brilliant cleansing light as he had done so many others, though each time had left him weak, and he knew that he was shortening the time that he would spend in Eden.   
  
Knives glanced over at the hilltop rising up to the north in the distance. The great light bulb cast a pale luminescence against the bleak sky. His people were free now, nevermore to be used under the bondage of the vermin's' tyranny. His thoughts turned to his brother, the one who lived among the vermin, trying to be one of them, constantly denying his higher nature. Whenever the weather changed, Knives could feel it in the bones of his arms and in the thickness of the scar tissue in his muscles. It was what was left over from when his brother had tried to stop his Eden from coming before. Still, he had healed, though slowly.  
  
Knives had slipped away, as silent as a shadow, to once again pursue his dream of freedom for his people. Now, all the humans on this planet of sand were dead. Their stink was gone from the air, replaced by the perfume of their bodily decay where any torn remnants of them lingered. Knives supposed that maybe a few of the vermin had survived his various destructions, fleeing to the wild desert. There, they would die - slowly. The dryness of the land and the oppression of the sun they could not escape, even if they had escaped him.   
  
The time before, he had drawn out his plans for many long years. He wanted his brother to suffer, and then to see the truth about the creatures he lived among. He wanted Vash to know that he could not save them. Now...now was different. Knives had decided when he had left his brother for the second time that the only way for Vash ever come to accept their Eden would be for him to see it first-hand.   
  
The tall Plant walked among the beautiful devastation he had created, glancing back at the great bulb to the north. He decided to walk to the hill, to tell his race-brother within that he was now finally free.   
  
He laid his hands upon the glass. The being inside met his gaze, steady, enormous glowing feathers whipping about his form as if they were blown by a mighty wind. Knives stumbled backwards, aghast.   
  
What were these emotions that he was feeling from his race-brother? Was he not grateful for his freedom?   
  
The Plant in the bulb continued looking at the freeborn Plant with a penetrating gaze. Tears of pure light fell from his eyes, stunning Knives all the more.   
  
"Brother?" Knives asked, "Are you not happy? You are free now. You are not going to be exploited by the humans anymore, don't you understand?"   
  
The Plant within the glass turned his head toward the remains of the ruined city to the east. He turned back to face Knives, his stare grief-filled and accusing.   
  
"But, brother, they had to die!" Knives pleaded, "They were feeding off you, destroying you slowly. They had no care for you! You were just a thing to them, something to be used, something to be raped! You are free now. The world is finally at peace!"   
  
The Plant stared at him still and his luminance grew. The soft light reflected off rubble on the ground surrounding the bulb. Knives squinted from a glimmer among the debris. His eyes went wide when he saw that the shine was from a long silver handgun. He knew this gun; it was the one that belonged to his twin. Memories flowed through his mind of how he had fashioned that weapon with the greatest of care. Why was it here, in the middle of this desolation?   
  
Knives' vision caught other metallic glints in the Plant-light. His eyes traveled past spurs that looked like robotic fingers up, up a silvery straight shaft that ended in a snarl of twisted and melted metal.   
  
Something red filled his sight now, also glistening, looking slick and gelatinous. That red mingled with something that looked like red cloth, torn in tatters and scraps. No, it couldn't be...   
  
Knives' mind screamed.   
  
After he had left Vash, Vash had hunted after him again, and had returned to wearing a long red coat as a symbol of courage and determination. Knives had seen his brother in that coat when he watched him from a distance in secrecy.   
  
Light played off the patches of red. Knives saw something white...and golden. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound issued forth.   
  
Vash lay motionless among the rubble, the skin of his face nearly pure white in its paleness. His torso was covered in a thick caking of oozing and dried blood, soaking through and flaking off his coat. His legs were both tangles of leather, torn flesh, and exposed bone.   
  
"Vash..." Knives choked, "Oh, Vash..."   
  
He knelt beside the prone and twisted form of his brother, and gently placing his arms around him, lifted his head against his chest.   
  
"Vash..." Knives whispered, "Why? I didn't want this...I didn't want this..."  
  
Vash's limp right hand lay next to the silver gun. Knives thought he could see the tips of white and silver feathers peeking out from the tight belts of leather along the length of the glove. Vash had tried to activate his Angel Arm to counter his own at this final city, but had not done so in time, and had been caught in a swirl of flying shrapnel. Why was he at this city...now? If he had known...  
  
Knives held his brother's crushed body close to his own, a strange wetness cooling his cheeks. Tears. Was this what it was like to cry? It had been so long...  
  
Knives stiffened as his ears caught the sound of whistling air. Vash's chest rose and fell laboriously.   
  
"Vash!" Knives cried.   
  
Vash's eyes slid open, pale and glazed. Two thin tears streamed down the sides of his face. He struggled to force enough breath through his mouth to speak.   
  
"C-couldn't..." he choked, "I couldn't save them..."  
  
"It's alright, Vash," Knives soothed, "I'll get you inside the Plant here and you will regenerate...Then we can be in a world of peace...together."  
  
"No..." Vash rasped, "I couldn't...couldn't save them. Too late...Too late."   
  
Vash closed his eyes once more and the grating whistle of his breath abruptly stopped. Knives felt an aching loneliness creep into his spirit.   
  
"Vash?" he said again, "Vashu? Vash, wake up. Wake up..." Desperation made his voice crack. "Wake up. Wake up, Vash, please..?"   
  
The wind howled. The coyotes bayed. No other sounds penetrated the sky. The light of the twin suns rose over the eastern horizon as the world turned in quietude and desolation.   
  
  
  
  
S. Nordwall, 2002.   
  
  
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For you peeps reading this at The Fanfiction Network who read my other Trigun fics, yes, I plan to finish "Blondie"... I'm just taking my sweet time on it. I have it planned out in my mind, I just haven't gotten around to typing it down yet, and the inspiration for the above story hit me hard... but expect me to post more of "Blondie" pretty soon ^_^;   
  
For those who read my Pokemon fanfiction, sorry, "Forever Man" is on permanent hiatus I think, unless inspiration hits me really hard for it, and that probably will not happen. I may remove it from ff.net completely, but I'm leaving the 4 chapters that I have of it up for you peeps who like it in its un-completeness, I guess.   
  
Peace Out!  
  
Shadsie Saverem/Lady Shadowcat 


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